The inconclusive results of elections for the Turkish Grand National Assembly held on Dec. 24, 1995, hindered the government’s effectiveness in 1996. The coalition between Prime Minister Tansu Ciller’s centre-right True Path Party (DYP) and Deniz Baykal’s centre-left Republican People’s Party (CHP) remained in power in a caretaker capacity until March 6, when Pres. Suleyman Demirel approved a new coalition between the DYP and its centre-right rival, Mesut Yilmaz’s Motherland Party. On March 12 the new government was endorsed by 257 votes to 207 in the 550-member parliament.

The coalition protocol provided for a rotating premiership, filled first by Yilmaz and then by Ciller after Jan. 1, 1997. But the understanding broke down when Yilmaz failed to block a move by the Islamic Welfare Party (RP) to set up a parliamentary inquiry into corruption charges against Ciller. On May 14 the Constitutional Court ruled that the parliamentary endorsement of the new government by a simple majority of members present had been invalid. Ciller then instructed her party to vote against the government in the vote of confidence that it sought, and as a result, Yilmaz was forced to resign. Alliances were then reversed. Ciller agreed to become junior partner in a coalition headed by Necmettin Erbakan (see BIOGRAPHIES), leader of the Islamic RP, against whom she had campaigned the previous year. The RP-DYP coalition took office on June 28 and was endorsed on July 8 by 278 votes to 265. The accession to power of an avowed Islamist as prime minister was a milestone in the history of Turkey’s secular republic, although the sensitive portfolios of foreign affairs, defense, and the interior were left in the hands of the nominally secular DYP. That party’s Interior Minister Mehmet Agar was forced to resign after a car accident in November revealed suspicious ties between legislators, top police officials, right-wing activists, and gangsters and suggested longtime government support for death squads.

The troubled domestic scene was reflected in the conduct of foreign policy. Ciller was caretaker prime minister at the end of January when both Greece and Turkey sent naval units to the eastern Aegean in a dispute over the ownership of uninhabited islets, known as Imia in Greek and Kardak in Turkish. A clash was avoided when both sides withdrew their forces in response to U.S. diplomacy. On March 24 Yilmaz, then prime minister, called on Greece to agree to negotiations on all outstanding issues, which would include recourse to third-party adjudication or arbitration. The call was rejected by Greece.

Also during Yilmaz’s premiership, Turkey signed an agreement with Israel providing for cooperation in the training of military air crews and negotiated a wider defense industry cooperation agreement.

Continuity in foreign policy was preserved when Erbakan came to power; the permission given to the U.S., Great Britain, and France to use bases in Turkey to fly over northern Iraq was extended until the end of the year, and the two agreements with Israel were confirmed. Doubts were raised, however, when Erbakan went to Iran and on August 12 signed an agreement for the purchase of Iranian natural gas and the possible construction of a pipeline to carry it. But by the end of the year, no move had been made to implement this deal, which was valued at $23 billion.

The cohesion of the coalition was then strained when Erbakan decided to go to Libya in October. The controversy increased when Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi told Erbakan that he favoured an independent Kurdistan. Nevertheless, Ciller instructed her party to vote for the government when the opposition sought to censure Erbakan over the Libyan trip, and the motion was rejected 275-265 on October 16.

Security operations against the armed bands of the Kurdish Workers’ Party continued. A suicide bomb attack and the killing of 14 soldiers in an ambush on Republic Day, October 29, showed that the problem was far from being solved. As the death toll in the 12-year-old insurgency rose above 20,000, allegations of violations of human rights in Turkey were cited by the European Parliament as one reason for suspending economic aid to Turkey. The parliament was also critical of Turkish policy in Cyprus. Both Erbakan and Ciller visited northern Cyprus to demonstrate their support for the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which Turkey was alone in recognizing. Andrew Mango

Learn More in these related articles:

The treatment of the Kurdish community by the government of Turkey remained one of the most significant violations of human rights receiving international attention. Facing terrorism and armed rebellion by one of the Kurdish factions, Turkish forces destroyed Kurdish towns and persecuted Kurdish political parties and leaders. Among those affected were elected members of the parliament...